Slashdot Mirror
Sony Aibo Hacks Increase Functionality
Dinglenuts writes "Engadget posted a how-to article on increasing your Aibo's functionality using third party hacks. Given the increasing availability of networked home goods, I'm very interested to see what uses the Slashdot community can conceive for a household controlled through voice commands issued to a robot dog."
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Can you make the thing fetch beer? Or is that lack of thumbs going to be a problem?
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
The opportunity for clever hacks like these through the combination of devices is why things should be left open by their designers during conception, when it's all possible. If this kind of mindset was more widespread, there'd be all kinds of possibilities from discovering what the pure functionality of a device can do. The increasing trend to lock devices down and restrict consumer flexibility with products they choose to purchase (see Xbox boot rom checks etc) is something that's dissapointing, and closing doors on innovative and new uses for everyday devices.
Business Voyeur
I don't suppose there's a hack to turn your Aibo into a lawsuit generator?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Better hack: remove the innards, place a live puppy inside.
Makes it far more realistic.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
I just want a robot dog with frickin lasers strapped to his head.
AIBO! SICK 'EM!
This reminds me of the continuously hacked/upgraded robot cat, Aineko, in Charles Stross' science fiction novel Accelerando (available for free download).
It will be interesting to see how complex these customized Aibo become in the next 10-20 years.
Why did God create blondes?
The sheep couldn't fetch beer from the fridge!
Then, why did God create brownhaired girls?
Neither could the blondes...
Then, why am I studying automation
To build me a god damn robot, so I finally can get that beer fetched for me!!!
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
What? Hacks for a Sony product? This can't be allowed! Sony must at once produce a new firmware update for all Aibos to make sure this dog-like robot only performs Sony approved actions. I mean, what would the world be like if a robotic dog did anything other than dance and perform tricks in ant entertaining fasion?
We can't have people going around actually writing their own software on hardware they purchased with their own money.
Aibo needs a guard function for the neighborhood cats. Just bark and move a bit when there's any meowing around. If they pee on my door one more time, I'm gonna' set bear traps.
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
More links which I didn't bother to read...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
a beo-woof woof woof of these...
"I'm very interested to see what uses the Slashdot community can conceive for a household controlled through voice commands issued to a robot dog."
Whatever it is, it's gonna involve goatse.cx
Reading the article might induce the ideea that AIBO is nothing but a toy for bored geeks. That's not entirely true, I'm thinking that proper software could turn the thing in an aid for blind children.
Let's just hope engadget doesn't get sued first, like that guy from http://aibohack.com/
The info on the "most recent" dogslife news is dated feb of last year. Has there been anything done within a year and a half?
I want an aibo with a holosonic speaker to follow me around, listening to my commands. The ultimate speakerphone, mixed with the ultimate stereo, and voice UI. Good dog!
--
make install -not war
"Give the cat fresh food!"
*Meow!!*
error 404 page not found. We're sorry, but the server is out of range of the wireless network. It either went for a walk or is chasing a squirrel in the back yard. Please try again later.
This seems inevitable as the Aibo's WiFi and webcam would seem to provide a physical network layer for ingress and an interesting target for crackers (virus-laden downloads are another means of infection).
I can just imagine Aibo spyware that relays webcam shots to who-ever. Owners will need to think twice the next time their Aibo wanders into the bathroom or bedroom.
Time to start thinking about how to deworm the Aibo.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
...would download and print trivial software patents, eat them, and turn them into smelly Aibopoo.
I gotta get me one of them robots to vacuum the floor. They're not that expensive, but I'm cheap, and there's not enough marketting to remind me that I need one. Yesterday I had to carry two weeks worth of groceries from the car up to my unit. That's like 2 flights of stairs. It's not a hard job, but I'm lazy. Where's my grocery carrying robot? You could do it with a stair climbing trolly, but what do you do with that trolly when you're done with it? Who has space to store a trolly? Maybe them autoreconfigurable robots are the way to go. Ya know, the 4 million bricks that talk to each other and can form any shape.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And I didn't think Japanese Robot Cats were supposed to have ears...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How washable is the Aibo?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
How about if it actually guarded the house? Hook this thing up to your MisterHouse setup and the thing might actually be useful...
...while it is wandering around and guarding, you'd still be able to get it to hump legs when there is an intruder.
;-)
That mild distraction might cause some gained time... and gained time might save a life.
-Aaron
My name is Aaron Landry, and I approve this message.
Now, a robot *gecko* would be useful - "Hey gecko, go dust that ceiling spot! And drag this ethernet cable across the crawlspace for me!"
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The Aibo Kennel Club Robot AI Mind (in MSIE JavaScript) will make some Aibos smarter than the U.S. president.
"household controlled through voice commands issued to a robot dog" i'm much more amused by the concept of a household controlled *by* voice commands issued *from* a robot dog. "hey sparky! run next door and tell the Jones' house to turn down that godawful music...and turn off their hot water while you're at it...mwouhahaha"
Seriously, until my AIBO can hump the leg of attractive lady visitors that come into my bachelor's apartment (aka the Linux Lair), the $2000 i spent on this thing is useless.
;-)
too precise of wording for you to have *just* thought of this, no?
"Go, Lassie, Go! Go girl, go call Pizza Hut for me!"
I just want my Aibo to hobble over and push the reset button on my windows box so I can stay on the couch...
jeff
It's easy to write code for an AIBO... there's a number of open source software frameworks for this great hardware platform -- although of course my favorite would be my own: Tekkotsu
And it's all supported by Sony -- no hacking required!
There's a variety of levels you can code at as well -- there's several high-level scripting languages like URBI, R-Code, and even a couple upcoming Python interfaces, as well as a number of low-level C/C++ interfaces (e.g. Tekkotsu) which can run onboard and directly process every bit and byte, or remote control from your PC for maximum horsepower.
I heard of a cool hack from the aibo robocup soccer tournies. Someone made a neural net program for the dogs to figure out the fastest way for them to move. That is, instead of programming soccer moves, it just let a neural net figure out all the gear movements that are needed.
It turns out that for some soccer positions (chasing a ball, defending, etc.), having the dogs move with their front legs bent was faster. (Conceptually, this is similar to a human walking on all fours, but using their elbows--arms bent.)
The cool part was that nobody thought of this. The learning program discovered this hack, and started using it. Engineers thought there was a bug, until they traced it and the learning program taught them that it was right.
Or, you could download the OPEN-R SDK for the AIBO and program it to do anything you want.
http://openr.aibo.com/openr/eng/index.php4
UPenn even ported a perl interpreter for the AIBO.
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/robocup/index.php
AIBO is actually a rather interesting platform for experimenting with image processing and signal processing algorithms, as well as team coordination algorithms.
Yes but...does it run Linux??
If those guys who are pretending to be a 'militia' patrolling the US-Mexican border are serious about cutting illegal immigration from the dirt-poor South, then they would be paying unemployed engineers and programmers to develop a robot that does berry and fruit picking. Stoop farm labor, which is mostly picking crops at the harvest, is (or is generally thought to be) the main employer of illegal immigrants from the lands south of the border.
NASA, of all people, claims to have developed a robot that can do fruit and berry picking. They claim that it's cheaper than sending than sending Mexicans into space, regardless of how little the wages are.
Personally, I've done stoop farm labor, picking shade tobacco, and it sucks. It's the true robot work.
But building a robot to do this is no simple matter. It's a serious programming challenge involving highly reliable vision processing, very intricate robotic arm positioning, and hygienic food handling in adverse conditions. And in order to be financially viable, these very sophisticated robots will have to be able to be manufactured cheaper than our neighbors can manufacture babies, and they have a 100,000,000 unit head start. We won't be able to just buy the robots either from the Japanese. By then, they won't be taking our near-worthless money and will demand payment in prime agricultural farmland. Where they will use their more advanced latest-model robots to grow their own food. Japan, you may recall, has 100,000,000 people living in a country the size of California where 80% of the land is too mountainous to use for farming or city space.
Now, having made myself seem to be a complete asshole from a politically-correct perspective, allow me to point out that the use of robots to replace unskilled labor is an issue that many (if not all) electronics and software engineers will be dealing with in the future. Farm laborers will hate us and will destroy the field robots at every opportunity. We will be accused of causing the childern of the unemployed workers to starve. And they will be right. The children of the unemployed farm workers will starve as a result of the farm robots. But, the robot designers point out, 'Why should an unemployed farm worker who must sneak into the US to work at sub-minimum wages have ten kids?' "We don't have ten kids. Hell, we can't even get the plain suburban white girls to go out with us. And we have real jobs!"
Ugly. A real mess. Unavoidable. Tragic. It's like saying that engineers are responsible for the continuation of African-American slavery from 1800 to 1865 because they invented the cotton gin. Without the cotton gin there wouldn't have been huge cotton plantations in the southern states of the USA requiring huge numbers of slaves. Had not the cotton gin been invented, the white southerners would have had an oversupply of slaves and would have shipped millions of them back to Africa.
Will we get the same blame a hundred years from now for causing millions of Mexicans to starve to death? Or will we be able to say that all those deaths were the result of a disfunctional culture obsessed with fucking themselves into massive over population just so that they would appear 'macho' by having absurd numbers of children?
Time will tell.
That's 'cuz you gotta slow down on the leg-humpin' thing man, chicks just don't go for it at the beginning. =)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Do these Aibos lick peanut butter or do they prefer grease?
For a real-world application of robot dog hacking accessible to people who don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on toys that they "hack," check out Natalie Jeremijenko's Feral Robots site. Instead of wasting your time making your mp3s play back through your expensive toy, you can make cheap robot dogs do something truly useful, like find toxic chemicals at a possible school building site. Do something worthwhile, don't just consume.
If there's some way to get the Aibo's to adhere to each other, they could connect in various shapes to form furniture for us, their human overlords.
Need a bed, dogs hike over, pick up a mattress, lay flat, and pull the mattress on top. Need a chair, the mattress is put away, and the dogs climb on top of each other re-adhere, and form a chair.
It's like nano-tech, but with giant, overpriced robot dogs. Then they can play soccer for your amusement.
Anyone else having serious Furby deja vu?
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
When it needs a recharge does it go to the charger? If it has non-rechargeable doe sit poop them out?
Your Average Joe
In Soviet Russia, Robot animal hacks YOU!
bite-the-postman hack!
systemic chaos writes "Following the announcement of the hack for a 'lick peanut butter' command for Sony's Aibo on the Slashdot community, worldwide supplies of the electronic dog have been all but obliterated by an unprecedented skyrocketing of sales."
"I'm very interested to see what uses the Slashdot community can conceive for a household controlled through voice commands issued to a robot dog."
Prepare to disapointed kid...
Robosapien 2 should be quite good, though u need a small beer :P
I thought there was already a story on slashdot about the guy with the laser pointer whom the FBI mistook for Al Qaeda operatives.
Sounds like another "man hacks dog" story to me...
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
... Texas Hold-em wirelessly through some off-shore casino site, and WINNING!
... my hand. What? What did you think I was gunna say?
Use a ZipIt handheld device to view through the eyes of your AIBO at all times.
;) /joke
Forget Sony's infrared V8 or hidden camara phone, THIS is the ultimate tool of peeping!!
Imagine, when those unsuspecting ladies pick the trojan^H^H^H^H^H^Hrobot up and hold it to their chest, you, as an elite geek, is seeing the first hand (ok second hand) look of their boobs.
Or rather, if you like, you could have the camara^H^H^H^H^H^Hdog hump a lady and direct it to look up. The lass would be too daze to know your cunning scheme.
The possibility is endless
right itself after it falls off of the couch while licking its own sack? Frankly, as long as it doesn't scratch its ass by dragging it across my living room carpet, it's OK in my book.
It shouldn't be too hard to program these things to sing rap/hiphop, or whatever they call this monkey music.
Personal robot army!
There are a surprising number of responses commenting on Sony dissaproving of Aibo hacking and whatnot.
Haven't you heard of Robocup?
http://www.robocup.org/
Mine actually is watching the house during daytime, while uploading pictures to its roblog :)
So I take it you did that?
>increase Aibo functionality with 3rd party hacks
Like the ability to mount and mate? Buy one blue and one pink Sony robodog, reprogram them and soon you will have the 101 Aibotians...
>Better hack: remove the innards,
>place a live puppy inside the shell.
Master: Lord Barker, can you hear me?
Darth Barker: "Yes, master. Where is she? Is she safe? Is she all right?"
Master: "It seems, in your anger, you bit her."
Darth Barker: "I - I couldn't have! She was all right! I felt it! Nooo!"
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
The "leg humping" hack should be combined with the "drink from the toilet bowl" hack for added realism.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
As a person that has messed with Home automation for years now and I get to play with some of the most expensive and high tech gear available for Home automation.... I suggest that anyone wanting voice control to give up and not want it, it will not exist in any reliable form for many more years, the "star trek/B5/sci-fi" automation is near impossible with current technology, and yes I have seen the dedicated PC with the $1300.00 microphones that still fail miserably.
:-)
room acoustics and the location of the speaker in regards to the microphone make a huge problem with Voice control. the ABIO fakes it quite well to the casual observer but in reality does not do that well.
Technology needs to progress much farther before it is a commonplace tool that works 90% of the time.
I suggest the easiest is a bluetooth enabled phone or more recently wifi enabled that gives you greater control. I was able to play with a prototype software app+wifi card for my treo (yes kiddies, a wifi SD card driver for the treo 600/650 does exist.) and was impressed as to how easy roaming control was, although it is easier at any of the control panels or one of the AMX control remotes.
there is no way in hell I can afford this stuff, but I install it/consult on the side.... It's good to spend and play with other people's monay
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The ladies might not visit, but if the AIBO is capable of voice recognition, maybe you can hack it to obey the command: "Get me a beer, bitch"
"I'm very interested to see what uses the Slashdot community can conceive for a household controlled through voice commands issued to a robot dog."
/Onion story from yesterday?
I'm sorry- wasnt this part of the "slashdot in 2056"
This sentence's period was stolen This sentence knows who took it:
That's dogpower.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
I found more interesting this link, found through the link at the bottom of the article. It says that Sony endowed some AIBOs with an adaptive curiosity system that allowed the robot dogs to learn to do things they weren't specifically programmed to do. This was accomplished by giving the dogs a sort of sense of curiosity and boredom. Cool.
What I want is my Aibo controlled by a real brain, even if it is only a cockroach brain (see also, ./).
Imagine, a robot that can think for itself! You could make a whole herd of
them for your own insect/Aibo colony. As the technology progresses, you
can move up to reptiles (gecko, iguana, etc) and finally into mammals (mice,
rats, cats, dogs, monkeys, hobos). Soon enough, you'll be able to get your
own Hobo Aibo.
Even in the beginning, this has a lot of potential. If we can wire up a cockroach into an Aibo, it might be our next congressbug. Who knows, maybe it could even be our next president. Unfortunately, it probably won't get elected, since it likely can't lie, scheme, cheat, take bribes, and deceive as well as the real thing.
Brilliant! Now we can all see that you've gone off and left your back door open. A few more frames, and we'll be able to see the path to your stereo system, ripe for the picking.
I can't say I've ever seen such an effective use of technology as an anti-security device.
There's prior art on a keg-bot. Specifically I refer to "How-2" by Clifford D. Simak originally printed in Galaxy magazine Nov. 1954, and reprinted in Bodyguard and 4 Other Short SF Novels from Galaxy ed. Horace L. Gold (Doubleday, Jun '60, hc).
A geek remembers these things.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why not make a program that conrols the AIBO like a puppet where the real AI can be a neural net running on a Beowolf cluster in Linux?
This would be a great way to test a Neural Net A.I. without having to build a shoddy robot that looks like it was patched together in the backroom MIT robotics department.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Complexity can be dealt with in a variety of fashions - but the most obvious one is to simply change the process of picking. Instead of picking the proceeds from the plants, one at a time, then subsequently using a tractor after harvest to till the remaining plant matter under, harvest the entire plant. Not only will this keep the product fresher on its way to further processing, but the rest of the plant will help protect and cushion the parts you are after during transport, further resulting in a better product. We are already seeing this in a small manner with the various brands of "tomatoes on the vine" and some forms of lettuce (left with roots and all) at the supermarket. Grapes have long been harvested this way (and unfortunately you can't harvest the whole plant either - so here is one task among many that I can leave to engineers who like complex solutions to develop). I propose that this be extended to many other plants - harvest the whole thing with special tractors and/or robots (I say it this way because modern tractors are so computerized with GPS systems and such as to be nearly driverless and robotic by themselves) outfitted for this purpose for the crop at hand. Dump any dirt out the back to leave it in the field. The resulting waste stream of plant matter after further processing can then be used in a biofuel processing system, or simply transported and spread/tilled into the field from which it came from, or used for other products. We know that this can be done - we currently do something similar for potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic (root and bulb plants) - I propose that it could be extended to other plants as well (although, as noted, probably not grapes, nor likely any other vine plants - but read on).
Another way to reduce complexity, while avoiding creating a robot that needs to perform and act like a human to harvest a crop - would be to change the way the crop is grown. Perhaps growing the plant in a "non-standard" manner could lead to more efficient and better automated harvesting solutions? Maybe a hydroponic system would make harvesting more easily automated? Maybe tomatoes grown upside down are more easily picked? Maybe strawberry plants could be forced to grow in a different manner that makes them easier to harvest via mechanical means without damaging them? Maybe designing or laying out a field in a different manner could lead to easier to harvest fields (imagine a field that is circular, with "rows" as rings around the field. All operations of the field, from tilling, to planting, to inspection, to watering, to pesticide/herbicide application, and even harvesting - could be handled by an "arm" on a pivot at the center of the field, with simple motorized wheels rolling it along. Automated guidance issues are eliminated. Inspection is handled easily via camera. Watering and fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide application are all handled via sprayer mechanisms)?
Finally, if hygenic conditions are truely what is wanted (and granted, some hygene - for the plants - may result in a better product), then perhaps an indoor or semi-indoor (or greenhouse) hydroponic or other solutions could help to create a better product by isolating the plants from a total outdoor environment (if we can build huge stadiums for sports entertainment, we can enclose food producing fields of simila
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Seeing the dancing ABIO videos, I would think writing a program to hump all attractive females would be simple. You might have to clue it in as to who is attractive by covertly pressing a few buttons, though... Now for step 2, getting attractive ladies to come to your appartment. My recomendation is to name it something other than "The Linux Lair".
Okay, well here's the original thinking behind why I posted this: Now, I don't have a mansion or an aibo, but I am literally slavering over the possibilities: -Telling your dog to play your classical music playlist in the living room -Telling your dog to go take a picture of what's going on on the porch and sending you a picture. -This is the best one, I just conceived of an entire scenario, whereby a friend rings the doorbell to my vast estate, the door unlocks and my voice says "Come in." However, when my friend opens the door he is greeted by the aibo who, transporting my voice over wifi, says "I'm in the back, just follow the dog." Now, I don't have to tell you guys that this represents a huge shift in thinking, where an intelligent pet executes commands by voice and they are done, like a magical genie. I cannot wait to be an eccentric rich person, so that I can indulge these sordid fantasies. I only hope to implement them before my children can afford this functionality at the local radio shack, and regard my strange fascination with rolled eyes and understanding nods as they realize their father is in the initial stages of geriatric decline.
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
Once we find a way to keep a mamal brain alive in a jar we can hook up a doggie brain and implant it into an AIBO and give our pet a "Prosthetic body", might be a good idea to extend the life of ol' shep who recently died of old age.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
frickin laser beams attached to their heads...
Does the AIBO do Tae-Bo?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.